Front Suspension Assembly; Undercoating

The 30th Anniversary of the 356 Registry East Coast Holiday came and went this past weekend without me attending. It was in Williamsburg, VA and despite rain, it appears to have been highly successful. Two things kept me away:

1. My car still isn't finished.


2. Twins and a 2 1/2 year old, plus grad school take up a lot of time!

In any case, I hope I make it next year, with the car! I've said that for about two years now. One of these times my statement will become reality...

My new schedule, which I have referred to in the past, has slowed my work. That's OK, I just have to be more judicious with my time. Since mid-September, when I finished the transmission, I have also managed to get the rest of the front suspension together. It looks great! Right now I have KYB shocks installed, which I got ages ago when I ordered a pile of parts up front at the beginning of the restoration. They are definitely bargain-basement shocks that I haven't heard many good things about. If the ride is too harsh I'll get some Boges. Am I actually talking about how the car will ride???

Today I went out and did the undercoating on the inside of the battery box, and also underneath the rear seat area/torsion bar, as well as beneath the engine compartment. I'm using "Wurth UnderBody Seal," similar to SKS StoneGuard but it isn't water-based. It is $20 a can and one can goes quickly. I used about a can on the inside of the battery box, and another underneath the rear seats/engine area.

I don't want to put on too much undercoating as if (oh nooooo!!!!) I ever need to do any more body or frame repairs, I don't want to have to spend my life removing the stuff in order to get at the damage. That''s why I'm basically applying a "skim coat." I'm going to rely on it to perform basic stone chip protection, and I'll use the sound deadening panels inside for noise abatement. The 356 GTs and Carreras had no undercoating applied to save weight, after all.

Let's see, what else. Getting the front control/trailing arms back together was pretty easy. I had to slightly adjust the angle of the lower torsion bar (I checked that the two torsion bars were parallel with a angle-finder). Then I simply clamped on the trailing arms with the pinch bolts. Measuring the offset of the trailing arm faces from each-other showed that both sides were very close to factory spec (one side was 7mm, the other 7.5mm). Installing the front spindles onto the trailing arms was easy once I recalled which side was left and which was right (putting them on upside down on the wrong side isn't quite as easy...)

The front sway bar got installed to, but I'll have to remove it to undercoat in that general area. I installed it just to get the bushings on and check fit as much as anything else. Getting the new rubber bushings on was a pain! Let me recommend lubing the bushings liberally with a rubber-friendly lubricant of some sort to aid in installation, otherwise they will not want to slide along the metal bar.

Last week I took my wheels to Chem-Strip in Burlington, NC to get them stripped and de-rusted. They weren't badly rusted or anything, but I know how long it takes to sand-blast things and figured $20 a wheel was going to be a better use of my time. There is a powder-coating facility adjacent to the stripper where I went over and inspected several finishes. They have a chrome-like finish that I think I'm going to use, it is similar to one used by Tom Hudson on http://www.project356.com/. As for tires, I have had several recommendations for a budget 165R15 tire (not many manufacturers making this size anymore!). Pep Boys has a line of tires called Futura Euro Metric that comes in this size, and is pretty cheap as well ($25-30 a tire). I think I will have them installed. Pictures will follow when I pick up the wheels; it should be about 2 weeks.

Wednesday, if I manage to get out to the garage, I plan on doing some more undercoating, maybe starting to paint the underbody satin-black to finish it off. Then I'm going to re-install the brake line system. Then the steering box and tie-rods. After that's done I can jack the transmission back into place and I'll be all ready to make the car a roller again! Even though it is still missing a nose, and needs more body work.

Speaking of the nose, I've been having major trouble tracking down a replacement nose panel other than the 2 piece version from Stoddard. I need to converse with Dee and see if we agree the panel I already got can be made serviceable, otherwise I need to find another donor car or bite the bullet and buy the Stoddard panels, even though we don't need all of them to complete the repair. Posted by pbrown at October 4, 2004 10:35 PM